Quality assessment | No of patients | Effect | Quality | Importance | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No of studies | Design | Risk of bias | Inconsistency | Indirectness | Imprecision | Other considerations | Exercise | Control | Relative (95% CI) | Absolute | ||
Flow-mediated dilation | ||||||||||||
8 | Randomised trials | No serious risk of bias | Seriousa | No serious indirectness | No serious imprecision | None | 196 | 110 | – | SMD 0.41 higher (0.21 higher to 0.62 higher) | ⊕⊕⊕Ο Moderate | Critical |
Shear rate area under the curve | ||||||||||||
3 | Randomised trials | No serious risk of bias | Seriousa | No serious indirectness | Very seriousb,c | None | 78 | 15 | – | SMD 0.05 lower (0.43 lower to 0.34 higher) | ⊕⊕ΟΟ Low | Critical |
Baseline brachial artery diameter | ||||||||||||
7 | Randomised trials | No serious risk of bias | No serious inconsistency | No serious indirectness | Seriousc | None | 171 | 95 | – | SMD 0.04 lower (0.25 lower to 0.17 higher) | ⊕⊕⊕Ο Moderate | Critical |
Body mass index | ||||||||||||
7 | Randomised trials | No serious risk of bias | No serious inconsistency | No serious indirectness | Seriousc | None | 183 | 95 | – | SMD 0.13 lower (0.34 lower to 0.08 higher) | ⊕⊕⊕Ο Moderate | Important |